Emotional Branding: What is it and How Does it Work?

Do you know the proverb, "Humans rationalise with logic while buying on emotion"? Emotional marketing is a way to connect with your customers, build meaningful relationships, and get loyal customers.

The art of storytelling that helps in connecting a product or service with the right audience is emotional branding. This kind of marketing aims to "humanise" or "personalise" a brand so that consumers can develop an emotional bond with it. Marketing professionals can communicate their brand identity and vision via a well-chosen mix of media.

Emotional branding is a marketing strategy that aims to create an emotional connection between a brand and its audience. It is based on the idea that people don't buy products or services based solely on their features or benefits, but rather on the emotions they associate with them.

At its core, emotional branding involves tapping into the values, beliefs, and aspirations of a target audience and communicating them through brand messaging and visuals. This can be achieved through various means, such as storytelling, customer experience, and brand personality.

One key aspect of emotional branding is creating a consistent and recognizable brand identity. This includes the use of consistent visual elements such as colours, typography, and imagery, as well as a consistent tone of voice and brand messaging.

Another important aspect of emotional branding is creating a brand experience that resonates with the audience. This can involve creating a seamless and memorable customer journey, such as through personalized interactions, memorable packaging, or unique in-store experiences.

The goal of emotional branding is to create a lasting emotional connection between the brand and its audience, leading to increased brand loyalty and advocacy. By appealing to customers' emotions and values, emotional branding can help a brand stand out in a crowded market and create a long-lasting relationship with its audience.

Emotional branding is a powerful marketing strategy that can help brands create a deep and lasting connection with their audience. By tapping into customers' emotions and values, and creating a consistent and memorable brand identity and experience, emotional branding can help brands stand out in a crowded market and build long-term customer loyalty.

Emotional Branding: The Science Behind it

Creating the ideal kind of advertising campaign requires science. To elicit a response, a brand must have a thorough awareness of its consumers and the appropriate emotions. It could be filled with rage or joy, melancholy or inspiration.

Because the brands they choose are an extension of their own personalities, styles, and identities, consumers want to have an emotional connection to those brands. Whenever a person has a strong emotional connection to a brand, loyalty increases. Consider several well-known business rivalries that have passionate followings, for instance:

- McDonald’s vs. Burger King

- Pepsi vs. Coke

- General Motors vs. Ford

Have you ever heard of someone fighting stubbornly for a product? The emotional seduction of consumers is what makes brands great, claims CMO, not awareness and relevance.

Some companies are using real research to uncover the formula for emotional branding.

In order to maximise the impact of its branding, Honda, for instance, started measuring eye tracking, facial coding, and electroencephalograms. So how can they emotionally engage their audience? And what other companies are doing with emotional branding?

Branding: Driven by Inspiration

What characteristics come to mind when you think of a professional athlete? Maybe motivated or diligent, committed or devoted?

These traits define successful professionals, but it's challenging for most people to match the level of dedication that the majority of professional athletes exhibit. Gatorade is aware of this.

Anybody who wants to succeed should possess these attributes, according to Gatorade. That is evident from the emphasis of many of their motivational advertisement campaigns. Have a look at the advertisement below, which features Olympian and US women's football player Abby Wambach. She exhorts the audience to "forget her" in the advertisement. She wants to leave a legacy rather than concentrate on her accomplishments so that the subsequent generation can surpass her brilliance.

It is the kind of inclusive, motivating message that a young football player would love to hear.

Branding: Cause Marketing

People love to feel like they're part of a cause. In fact, Millennials and Gen Z'ers are increasingly choosing their occupations based on how strongly people feel about them. Consumers want to feel like they are a part of something bigger than themselves, and from a consumerist perspective, some businesses can provide that.

One company that has devoted its life to social concerns and cause-based marketing is Patagonia. Patagonia has promised to donate 1% of its yearly sales to the protection of the environment since 1985. Patagonia, for instance, is proud to pay its supply chain employees fair-trade certified wages and contributed to the creation of a national park. Because the brand's sales benefit a worthwhile cause, customers can feel good about their purchases from the company.

An important tool for the business is Patagonia's commitment to the environment. The inspiring advertisement for Patagonia was released two years ago, and they didn't even promote the company's apparel. Instead, the corporation made a point of emphasising the value to buy less and buy used clothes since people have the power to change the way clothes are made.

Branding: Emotional Ads

One of the brands that do a good job of capturing love in its branding is Subaru. Subaru commissioned the agency Carmichael Lynch in 2007 to produce advertising that would make viewers feel something. To reach a new audience, the agency made the audacious decision to show its initial batch of commercials during the Puppy Bowl rather than the Super Bowl.

It's important to note that this advertisement features a road/camping trip, a Subaru motif they frequently use to market to outdoor enthusiasts who appreciate how tough Subarus are. This campaign's inclusion of the extra dimension of a dog's loyalty is a fantastic illustration of how to market to an audience and elicit the right feelings.

Its name is the "Love, it's what makes a Subaru, a Subaru" campaign, which is now comparatively well-known.

The "Girls’ Trip" commercial, young woman drives her granny a long distance home. They discover they have a lot in common as the journey goes on and they get to know each other on a fascinating new level. We discover at the end that Grandmother was the one who advised the young woman to get the Subaru she now loves.

Subaru has carefully cultivated identities for its target market: family-oriented, forward-thinking, and emotionally-driven. With the creation of content tailored to their ideologically progressive customers, they have successfully catered to that group.

Branding: Evolving with Emojis

Understanding your audience is crucial to successful selling. Yet, with the popularity of emojis in advertising, the meanings and applications of this global language are expanding rapidly. Emojis, claims Neil Patel, are the UK's fastest-growing language. When addressing a younger audience, this "new language" is especially useful.

In recent years, emojis have been incorporated into a wide variety of marketing initiatives, including email and social media campaigns, as well as the introduction of new products.

Domino's "tweet-to-order" feature, which allows users to initiate a pizza order via texting a pizza emoji, was recently introduced for US customers.

Using the lightheartedness of emojis isn't just happening in fast food chains. DailyPay, a fintech startup, has also started using emojis in an effort to make its product more approachable. Along with their clients, enterprises and DailyPay provide employees with instant access to their accrued but unpaid salaries. Employees can cash out their accrued hours with an emoji before their next paycheck arrives.

DailyPay tracks the most popular emojis to gain insight on their user base, such as whether or not they tend to be upbeat or downbeat.

More than just a fun addition, emojis may provide a whole new dimension to your marketing strategy. An individual's or a company's brand's image can also benefit from this.

Emoticons may help communication in business emails, according to a study from the Florida Institute of Technology. The end user thought the tone was less negative when a smiley face was included, according to the feedback. This discovery can help with the creation of more efficient methods for providing less-than-optimal feedback to customers by customer care teams.

Conclusion

Strategy is needed for emotional branding. If you want to motivate your audience to action, you need to know your buyer personas inside and out. What kind of people already adore your brand, and how can you classify them? What demographic characteristics do they possess? Do you intend to evoke any particular feelings or emotions?

Before you dive headfirst into the branding process, ask yourself these questions. Emotional branding, when executed properly, can take your brand's story to the next level.